The Lost Meadow

We’d been walking across the local golf course in order to access some of our favourite stretches of countryside.  

We had thought we were being very daring and trespassing until we discovered the golf club had kindly opened up pedestrian access during Lockdown.

For several weeks we took only certain routes which joined up with the public footpaths we were aiming for.

Then last weekend, for no particular reason, we abandoned our plans and swerved off down a path we had never followed before.  

We discovered a massive tract of verdant golf course.  We had not even known it was there.  The blue sky above emerald grass, close-mown over rounded hummocks, was almost too good to be true.  It reminded me of Tellytubby Land.

Here and there, parents with tiny children were having a gentle toddle, or rolling balls.  Walking beside the ‘Rough’, we caught sight of a great-spotted woodpecker, a tom-tit’s nest, the first comma butterfly of the year.  It was idyllic. 

I’m glad now that we ventured out there because the following day, golf courses were declared open once more and our trespasses have come to an end.

I shall always think with longing of this Lost Meadow.

But not enough to consider taking up golf!